Thieving Hearts
by ofrcomapany
Summary: E/C. Erik's childhood was the complete opposite of loving. Thirty Five years later, his only means of sanctuary is the traveling fair he owns. Christine's childhood was once the definition of love, until her father died. After escaping the clutches of her abusive aunt, Christine finds her way to "The Carnival of Rust." Can two broken souls turn into one true love? Erik/Christine
1. Chapter 1

**Erik's POV**

God was not a fair person… Sometimes, I wondered why I was born, only to live a life of misery? My mother married at a young age. She often spoke of Charles, her handsome husband who made her heart flutter every time he walked into the room. They met by chance during a snow storm… My mother had been carrying a bag of groceries and slipped on the ice. Charles, a master mason, happened to see her fall and ran to help her. It was love at first sight… After they married, they spent endless nights wrapped within one another's embrace. They both wanted nothing more than to have a child of their own, but after numerous attempts, they failed. Charles insisted that he and my mother continue trying, and after sobbing for hours over it, she agreed. Though, they never got the chance to try again, for only after a year of marriage, Charles left for work and never returned. He had been building a shoe repair shop on the other end of town with a few other masons. A beam broke loose from the ceiling and came crashing down, pinning Charles and killing him instantly. The beam had been so heavy that it broke every bone in his body. I could only imagine that it had to be an extremely painful death. The other masons loaded his body into a wooden cart and wheeled him home to my mother.

After burying her husband my mother was left heartbroken and lonely. Some days she wouldn't leave the house, and other days she thought about ending it all. Sometimes, they say you wind up in the wrong place at the wrong time… That's exactly what happened to my mother. After months of sulking over Charles, she saw an advertisement for a fortune teller at a traveling fair that would be in town for one night only. Deciding to go, she headed out to the fair alone… There were magicians, acrobats and oddities of all shapes and sizes displaying themselves to the paying crowds. While my mother was on her way to the fortune teller's tent, she was pulled aside by the fair's owner and was brutally raped. He was a horrid man named Javert, a greasy gypsy who's favorite pastime consisted of drinking alcohol and having sex…Man or woman, it didn't matter, for he enjoyed both. Afterwards, he threatened my mother, telling her that he would kill her if she told anyone. It was a horrible experience for her, and to make matters worse, a month later, she got the news that she was carrying a child…his child…a child that would cause her nothing but pain.

At first, my mother was upset, but after a few weeks, she realized that this might have been her only chance at having her own child. She tried to put aside how the child was conceived and hoped for the best, assuring herself that she would bear a son, a son that she would name after her late husband. She even considered telling everyone that her child was conceived the night before Charles died. But her joy soon turned into a horror story, for when the baby emerged from her womb eight months later, she looked down and in between the bloodied sheets was not a beautiful child…There, wrapped in the sheets was a monster! A creature born with a deformed face. Yellow flesh pulled drum tight over bone, purple and blue arteries and veins protruding from an exposed skull… bloated lips and a gaping hole where a nose should have been. It was her worst nightmare. She couldn't even name the child after her sweet Charles… No, she ordered the priest to name the baby after him…a complete stranger! That's how I got my name… Erik. I was supposed to be Charles, and yet, I got landed with the name of a stranger. Oh, and my mother made sure that I knew what I was. Day in and day out she beat and verbally tortured me…She made me an uncomfortable mask that I was forced to wear, even after I outgrew it. If I ever took it off, she lashed me twenty times. I was locked away in my attic bedroom, never allowed to walk freely through her home. When I got sick in the winter, she would scream and tell me that she hoped I would die and relieve her of her burden. There was no love in this woman's heart for me… My mother never celebrated my birthday, for she always told me that the day I was born was the worst day of her life. But the day I turned seven was a life changing day, for on my seventh birthday, my mother finally seemed happy.

"Come, we're going out," she said to me in the nicest tone I had ever heard her speak in.

Out? She was really taking me out? I had never seen the world, and I didn't waste a moment in getting dressed. When I was ready to go, she took my by the hand and led me out the door. Everything was so new to me, the yard to our home, the blue sky, the people, the animals…I loved it all and never wanted any of this to end. We ended up at a fair, the same fair that my mother had come to on the night I was conceived. I didn't find anything wrong at first, but after we entered one of the caravans, my once wonderful birthday turned into my worst nightmare. My mother grabbed my arm and tossed me towards a large man with a greasy beard.

"Remember me?" she cried. "Remember when you took me by force and raped me? You gave me a son and he's a monster too!"

My mother tore away my mask, and the man's eyes seemed to go wide as though he were looking at a chest filled with treasure.

"You can have your monster bastard back!"

My mother stormed away as tears fell from my eyes. I had never seen my face, for my mother never kept any mirrors in the house. I never knew why my mother hated me so much, but there, in that caravan, I was left standing alone in front of Javert's mirror. I was hideous, so hideous that I frightened myself. I called for my mother, but she never came back for me. This man, Javert, did not look at me as his son. No, to him, I was his number one attraction. I was locked in a filthy cage on wheels and carted around from city to city, being forced to show my face to paying crowds. Not only that, but twice a week, he would pull me from my cage in the middle of the night, tie me to a tree and brutally rape me. The first time it happened, I wasn't sure what was going on, but when I saw him unbuttoning his trousers and felt the searing pain of him entering me, I wished for nothing more than death. No one loved me, and Javert assured me that no one ever would. This went on for many years until I could no longer take it… There came a night not too long after my fifteenth birthday that I completely snapped. I waited for the drunk bastard to unlock my cage for my weekly rape, and that's when I turned on him. I grabbed the rope he would use to tie me to the tree and wrapped it around his neck. I was strong and fought against him, pulling it tight. After he was dead, I ran into the woods on that cold, snowy night in bare feet and with no shirt to keep me warm. I nearly caught pneumonia in an attempt to find shelter for the night. I couldn't go into town, for my face would frighten everyone, therefore, when I came across a ship yard, I snuck on board the first vessel I saw. On board it was warm and down below with the cargo there was food and clothing. I made myself a mask out of an old shirt I found and prepared myself for wherever I was headed. Little did I know that my life of hell was hardly over, for a month later, I found myself in Persia. One minute I was fighting for my life, and the next, I was at war in another battle with the devil itself. I wasn't exactly sure how it happened, but when you're hungry and desperate bad things happen. In an attempt to find some means of keeping myself, I auditioned for a magician job in the royal court. The Shah of Persia was impressed, and after five years of entertaining him with mere parlor room tricks, I became his master mason. I thought I would be happy, but little did I know that what I was building were not extra rooms for the palace, but torture chambers that would make people suffer! I didn't say anything at first, but after a few months, I decided upon leaving Persia for good.

I wasn't sure how he found out about my plans, but he offered a hefty reward to the first guard who delivered him my head. I nearly died in an attempt to escape, but I managed to sneak on board another ship with just a stab wound to my shoulder. It had been a bloody battle, but I got the upper hand and strangled the guard who attempted to kill me. I didn't like killing, but I didn't have any other choice. Knowing that I needed to somehow keep myself unknown and out of trouble, I decided upon opening my own traveling show. It was perfect… I wouldn't linger for too long in one place, I didn't need to be seen, for my performers would do all the work, and the best part about it was that I would have a roof over my head and money in my pocket. The moment I arrived in Paris, I put up flyers requesting the need for acrobats and magicians. By the end of the week I had twenty new performers ranging in all shapes and sizes. They referred to me as "master" and that was good enough for me. With the left over money I had from working for the Shah, I purchased a few horses and my own caravan. I was nervous about our first show in Paris, but it was a success… Thousands came and by the end of the night, I was richer than I had ever been. That was ten years ago… It had been ten years since I started the "Carnival of Rust," ten years of being on the road with my performers. It started out as twenty, but expanded to forty due to the fact that almost every performer picked up a husband or a wife along our travels and popped out a few kids…Everyone except for me. I barely stepped out of my caravan, only doing so to collect the money at the end of the night or to close down the carnival. It had been a sheltered ten years, but it was the happiest I had ever been.

During those ten years I barely slept, seeing that I screamed out in my sleep. The horrors of my past visited me every time I closed my eyes, horrors that no one should see in ten life times. Some nights I woke gasping for air with sweat pouring down every inch of my body. Then, I would sob into my hands and force myself to stay awake. It was embarrassing to think that a thirty five year old man would cry, but I couldn't help it… I needed to stay strong and not look weak in front of my employees. I knew it would never happen, but I often thought that it would be nice to have a woman who could understand everything I was going through…But in my heart I knew that was a dream and nothing more.

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><p><strong>Fondest Greetings to you all. For those of you who do not know me, I am Eriksangeofmusic4ever. I've written many Phantom stories here on Fanfiction. Well, why am I under a different Pen name you may ask? Well, fellow reviewer and Fanfiction author OldFashionedRomantic asked me if I would like to write a story with her, and well, here I am! She and I will be bringing you weekly chapters that will thrill you all! I hope to see some of my Phans back here to try something new. I have to say that this story will be something totally new, for OldFashionedRomantic is a different writer than I am. I hope you all enjoy! We own nothing but dreams. Stay tuned for next Sunday's newest edition of "Thieving Hearts" <strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**Christine's POV**

People say childhood is a magical time when the world is all sunshine and joy and a little girl could learn everything she needed from her mother. Mine was not that way, at least for the past ten years it had not been so. But before then, oh before then it was magical! Long summers by the sea with papa and his violin...just him, me and my Angel of music, the one that came to father when the liquor took over his mind. He would act silly and tell me stories, but if only mama had not died he would not have needed the dreamy-mix to make him happy. If only the Angel of music was not a voice in his head that made him do bad things to himself, for that's why he drank... he drank to stop the voices in his head.

I did not understand then that my father's 'Angel' was merely a symptom of a disease called _schizophrenia_ and it was his madness that had made him such a brilliant story-teller. His angel was kind to me, ever so kind, he told me stories and made me laugh. Perhaps it was to comfort me when he made papa do bad things to himself with his violin bow and I had to clean it up afterwards. He would always let papa hold me after that and tell me a story about himself and give me a musical blessing the way he did with both my parents before he took them away. I knew this because papa had those moments of clarity when he would tell me I sang just like my mother. Those times had made me so happy, but I had not known that he had meant to have these blessings come with a terrible price…one that eventually lead me here.

My strawberry blonde curls billowed behind me as I stood in the doorway of a caravan, thinking of this sight as I had the first day I had stood at the front of the ornate mansion I had run from. The hellhole where my aunt Carlotta had taken me in when I was six and kept me prisoner for a year, reminded me of a cage. She was a wealthy opera singer and her lavish home should have been a palace to me. It might have been had I been treated as the child she so desperately claimed she wanted. But no, to her I was nothing more than a mistake that her sweet, naive little sister Charlotte could not take back and as a child she and uncle Ubaldo were never quite kind. Uncle was nicer than his wife, because really he did not have a problem with me, and if he had a backbone he might have insured my happiness. But he was a weak man and although I could see he did not enjoy hurting me, uncle went along with everything his wife said.

Consequently my year in captivity, as I called it, was a miserable one and I prayed for death most nights. When my aunt was not around, my uncle would do what he could for me... bring me food, water and such when she had forbidden me from eating for some minor offense. My aunt was just awful, always kicking me and telling me that I was useless; punishing me for any and every little thing that popped into her head. To her I was just a burden that she had inherited upon the death of her sister. A sister she had not loved in life and hated all the more in death because she had never been able to have children of her own. Now she had me and did not care about the fact that I had no control over whom my parents were, for it was all the same to her.

In her house I was never allowed to do anything that brought me any joy... she had even forbidden me to sing. That was the one rule I had never broken, and trying not do so was extremely hard. I knew what would happen if I did sing because the one time my aunt caught me, I was not allowed to eat for three days. I had been simply humming a lullaby that papa used to sing while I scrubbed the floor. She had overheard me and came into the room, yanking me off my belly by the ear and slapping me with her long bony fingers. Her nails stained in crimson nail polish cut my cheek and being seven, I cried. Another thing my aunt hated beyond my singing was my sniveling and so I had learned not to cry, but when I felt the blood run down my face I couldn't help it.

She grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me, shrieking, "You! You girl, look at this mess!" her saliva hit me in the face. "You got blood on my nice clean floor!"

"I'm sorry ma'am..." I sobbed, "I…I did not mean to…" That only made her angrier.

"You are just like my sister, a worthless little slut! Like mother, like daughter, the scum of the street...Isn't that right, girl?"

"Y-yes aunt…" I stammered.

_"What _did you call me, girl?" my aunt screamed.

"I'm sorry, aunt…I mean ma'am…" I stammered.

"I told you to never, never call me that!" she yelled pulling my ear hard.

She pushed my face down on the floor and smeared me in the blood and soap. It burned my eyes and I screamed. She reached for the paddle on the wall, the one she called her 'switch' and I thought she might hit me again on the bottom until I could not sit down. Afterwards, I knew she would lock me in the basement like she usually did. I was used to that and so I braced myself for the beating, but what came next was worse. She exposed my back, and then, she struck me over and over, the sound being so loud that I thought my back might break. In the midst of my own screams, I could hear her hitting me harder every time a sound came out of my mouth and I knew that I must stop screaming unless I wanted it to get worse. But with every slap I could feel the blood running hot and sticky down to the floor that I had just washed and I knew the more of a mess I made the angrier she would become.

Above the screams I could hear my aunt shouting but all I could make out was, "Stupid…worthless…good-for-nothing child!" and crack, crack, crack!

It went on and on until I heard the paddle actually snap in half but by then I was in too much pain to scream anymore. My world had gone black and for a moment I hoped that I had died but in the back of my mind I knew I was not going to die, not by my aunt's hand anyway. She would not want to risk a police investigation and so she would let me live until I was old enough to defend myself and then who knew what would happen then. Either way I knew she would go too far one day and I was grateful that the pain had knocked me. My aunt left me there on the cold floor until my uncle came home, most likely going off to drink and mentally relive the memory of the beating she had just given me.

That was something else she hated me for and never forgave mother for having a lovelier voice that she did and then capturing the heart of the handsome violinist who played first chair every night. She had been the diva till one night he had paid the tenor to let him preform the role of Romeo opposite her Juliet. It was in that opera they had fallen in love and in their dressing room that night I was conceived. Mama had left the opera when she had found out she was pregnant and married Papa right afterwards. Out of love and respect for her sister she had chosen her as her replacement and my aunt was less than grateful. She had never been happy that her sister had chosen a domestic life over one of fame and fortune.

Then she had me nine months later on Christmas Eve and died that same father adored me but he never was quite able to show me the love I knew he must have felt. He loved me but the alcohol was his other love and often times the one he chose over me...But I knew deep down that I would always be loved by him. That was until the drink had made him sick and I watched him turn yellow and slowly die from a terrible illness of the liver. I was six then and a week before my fifth month living with my aunt, the abuse started. It started out with little things, long hours locked in the dark with no water and a bucket to serve as my toilet. Then it was no food for days on end and now it was the beatings. When I woke up that night, I was lying in my bed with a bandage wrapped around my head and wrists, my uncle and aunt were fighting downstairs like usual.

"You went too far this time, Cara! You could have killed her!" my uncle was shouting, "the child did not do anything wrong and you almost killed her."

"So what if I did? She's a ward of the state, no one would care if she died… not you and certainly not _me! _The good for nothing wretch, she will probably end up looney like her waste of a father or dead with another little slut in her belly like my foolish romantic sister, who fell for that drunken loon and ruined her life!"

"As I recall, Carlotta, you too were in love with that child's father and were very jealous of his affections towards your sister." Uncle told her with a stoney voice, "Now could it be that you are again jealous of the child your sister had because she is a carbon copy of her mother down to her voice?"

"So what if I am! That useless little sister of mine got everything, and I was always playing second fiddle! No more, do you hear me? I won't play second to anyone in my little sister's life, certainly not her brat!" my aunt hollered

"She's not a brat, she's an orphan and we cannot have children! I would think you would be as happy as..." uncle stopped.

"As happy as you are to have her? Oh good god, Ubaldo, you love her!""my aunt laughed cruelly.

"Well...I...yes..." he sounded sheepish.

My uncle loved me. I wanted to run out of my bed and hug him and not ever let go again, just knowing that there was someone in this cruel world that loved me and was trying to be protective made so happy. For once it seemed he was going to stick up for me, maybe even take me away from this and give me back the kind of love my papa did. Minus the drinking and the somewhat sadistic angel of course, I had hoped in that one brief moment that he would tell my aunt he was leaving her and then come in, lift me from the bed, carry me to a doctor, tell them that my aunt had done this to me, have my aunt arrested, and I would go off with my uncle and live happily ever after. But it was short-lived, because my uncle was such a sucker for his wife that when she started to cry he did a complete turnaround on me.

"I suppose you love her more than me, just like mom and father did with Charlotte!" She bawled loudly.

"No Cara, no of course not but you cannot keep doing this, the neighbors may not care but the police would!" my uncle hissed, "Do you want them poking around here!"

"She will be dead by then and no one will know if she is here or not, no one will care!"

The fighting went on for several minutes after I learned that I had been wrong and my aunt intended to kill. I did not hear what they said after that because I dragged myself out the window into the rainy night. I ran and did not look back. I have never looked back, not for a decade now and what a grueling decade it has been. I had lived on the streets, ate out of trashcans and even turned to stealing in order to feed myself. The one thing I never did was prostitute because no matter how low I dropped I would never give up my virtue. It was this pride that had driven me to where I am now, scarfing stolen bread and hiding as more wanted posters showed up around the city. I was grateful that I was able to keep my face covered, for I knew it would only be a matter of time before I would be caught.

Now I was here, crouched in the private quarters of what appeared to be a gypsy caravan, hiding, I realized in vain from the long arm of the law. There was no hope for me, I knew that when I saw someone else enter...a tall man with a deep voice and he looked very intimidating from where I was crouched in the corner. He might help me, if only to get the police to go away. The man from what I could see hated the authorities as much as I feared them because when he heard them approaching, I saw him scowl and sigh in annoyance. I heard them coming and I grabbed the hem of his pants and he turned, his face going from being as white as a ghost to red with anger.

I did not have the time to respond as I was suddenly grabbed from behind, by my arms and yanked upward. "Christine Daaè, you are under arrest!"

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><p><strong>Chapter two! Please review! If you're wondering, Eriksangelofmusic4ever is writing Erik's POV and oldfashionedromantic is writing Christine. More adventures are ahead, stay tuned.<strong>


	3. Chapter 3

**Erik's POV**

It had been a long night, a long and torturous night. The show had been successful, but the winter winds of Sweden had made my nightly task of collecting the money ten times harder. After shutting everything down for the evening, I entered my caravan. I was tired, but sleep was something that was never kind to me. Knowing that I would probably stay up all night wrapped up in my music, I took a seat at my desk. Usually, at this hour, my camp would be completely silent, but for some odd reason, I heard footsteps and strange voices. Curious, I stood to my feet and approached the small window I had in my caravan. I always kept it covered in a drape for I didn't need my employees seeing my face. They knew I wore a mask, but they didn't know why and I knew they would never know the reason.

I moved the drape aside to see what the noise was all about, only to spot two men of the law headed towards my caravan. The law…I hated them more than I hated the public. No matter where I found myself, I was always dealing with the law. I never did anything to cause trouble, but the moment I would roll into town, they would find their way to me. Freaks and men in masks were a red flag to them…

The moment I heard the knock at the door, I pulled it open to find the two lawmen standing there before me.

"Every time I find my way to this town, I have one of you standing at my door. What law have I not broken now?"

"It's not about you this time," one of the men replied.

"Well, that's a first. What? What is it now?"

"There was someone spotted near your camp, a wanted criminal…a woman."

"You are sadly mistaken, there is no…"

Before I could finish, the authorities pushed me aside.

"Then you wouldn't mind if we had a look, then would you?"

This was an invasion of privacy and I would have killed the both of them if I wasn't afraid of jeopardizing my show. They invaded my home and began snooping around as if they owned the place. I tried to stay calm, that's all I could do. I backed myself towards my desk while they overturned my papers and belongings. Though, as I was doing so, I felt someone tugging on my pant leg. I looked down to spot a woman with strawberry-blonde curls lying there. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could say a word, I was interrupted.

"Christine Daae, you are under arrest"

One of the authorities lifted the girl up by her arm. How had she gotten into my caravan? She was dirty, her dress was filthy and covered in soot.

"You have the wrong girl!" she yelled. "I'm not Christine... I'm not… I'm his wife."

My wife? Oh, now she had gone too far. My wife? Highly unlikely, for I had never married or been in love. But what could the authorities want with this girl? She hardly fit the criminal profile. But I knew if I didn't do anything to help her, I would be to blame as well, for the authorities would believe that I had been hiding her.

"Get your hands off my sister…"

I pulled the girl from the man's grasp and dusted her dress off.

"Sister, I've been searching all over for you. You had me worried."

"Sister?" they questioned.

"Yes, she is indeed my sister. Her name is Melody and she isn't quite with it. She disappears for days, sometimes weeks at a time."

"She fits the profile of Christine Daae, the same girl we are after."

It was up to the girl now to save her own skin and act the part. And surprisingly she did… she cuddled up beside me, something that I was not comfortable with.

"I was bad… bad bad bad…"

I rolled my eyes and could not wait for all this to end.

Without any proof that this girl was indeed the girl they were looking for, they couldn't do anything about it.

"You'll get what's coming to you, demon," one of them began. "One day I will have good reason to arrest you, and when I do, you won't be seeing the light of day for a long, long time."

The girl hung onto me until the authorities were long gone. Only then did I push her away from me.

"Get off me!"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to come in here," she assured. "I had no place else to go."

"Are you the one the authorities are looking for?"

"Yes, but I didn't do anything…"

I approached the front door to my caravan and pushed it open.

"Good, now get out of here and away from my camp before they come back. Thank God I'm leaving tomorrow…"

"You're leaving tomorrow?" she questioned. "Then take me with you…"

"I will not take you with me. I don't even know you…I have a hard enough time keeping the authorities away from my camp, the last thing I need is a wanted criminal traveling with us"

"I'm useful," she continued. "I can cook, and clean… I was a housemaid for my aunt. I scrubbed her floors and prepared all the meals."

"A cook? You are useless. Get out of my camp before I call the authorities back."

"But it's freezing… please, sir… please take me with you. I'll do anything, anything you need me to do."

I wasn't sure why this girl wanted to travel with a band of freaks, but I didn't care. For years I had picked up a few stragglers along the way, but it was because they were a freak. I never had a normal human being begging to join my camp.

"Before I make any decision, I need to know your crimes. Why are the authorities after you?"

"My papa died. I was sent to live with my aunt. She was a horrible woman and in the end, she was planning to kill me. I ran away and have been living on the streets. I stole when I needed to and only because I needed to. I only did what I had to do in order to survive."

"A gypsy…"

"No," she gasped. "No gypsy…I won't steal anything from you, I promise."

I didn't believe her, that being the reason why I reached into the front pocket of her dress. I grasped the cold trinket my fingers came into contact with and pulled it out to reveal my golden pocket watch. I waved it in front of her face and quickly placed it back into the lapel of my jacket.

"I didn't mean to take it. I only took it in case you refused to help me. It would have been a week of meals."

"I don't hire employees I can't trust. You are not trust worthy."

"Please," she begged. "Please, help me. Give me a chance…"

I knew this girl wasn't going to leave until I gave her what she wanted, therefore, I gave her my pocket watch.

"Go and buy yourself that week of meals then and get out of my camp."

I turned to begin cleaning up, when I felt her tap on my shoulder. When I dared to turn around, she placed the watch back into my hand.

"I'd rather have a job."

I was stunned, for no bigger would have ever given me back my watch, for it was worth more than a week of meals. I had obtained this watch in Persia and it was made from the finest gold ever found. I placed the watch back into my jacket and stood before the girl, over powering her height by at least two feet.

"You want a job do you?"

She nodded. "Very much so, sir…"

"Well, you can start by getting out of my caravan."

"Where will I go?"

I had the girl follow me. I led her out of my caravan and towards an empty tent. Yes, it wasn't a caravan, but I didn't have any extra caravans lying around. All of the employees started off in tents and worked their way into their own caravans. This girl would be no different.

This will be your tent. You are to sleep in it, keep it clean, and pack it up each time we move. There are a few extra horses, so choose one and it will carry your belongings."

We entered the drafty tent and I fluffed up the blankets that were covering the cot."

"Do you always keep empty tents placed about?"

This girl was rude, but I answered her question.

"To answer your question, I had an acrobat who died two days ago in a terrible accident. This tent was hers… It's yours now."

"It's drafty…"

"You could sleep out in the cold if the tent does not suit you!"

She gasped at my angry tone, for most did…

"What will I do to earn my keep in the camp?"

"I'm not sure… Tomorrow we will leave and journey to the next city. Once there, I will decide what you should do."

"What do they call you, sir? What should I call you?"

"You may call me "sir," sir and nothing more."

With that, I left the girl to return to my own caravan. I didn't want another employee, for I didn't need one, but what could I do? I was weak when it came to people in need. I guess I saw piece of myself in them, for I had once been in need as well. I was nearly to my caravan, when I heard a familiar voice.

"There's a girl here…"

I turned to find my wolf man peeking out from his caravan.

"Indeed, Wolfgang," I stiffly replied. "She's one of us now."

"But she's normal… she's beautiful."

I could only roll my eyes, for I hated when people got into my business or asked questions.

"That she is."

That was the last thing I said, for I continued to my caravan afterwards. For the remainder of the night, I cleaned up the mess that the authorities' had made and worked on my music. At first light the next morning, I headed out to prepare for our departure, finding the girl struggling with wrapping up her tent. Yes, I could have helped, but the girl needed to learn to pull her own weight. I wouldn't consider us a family, for my camp was hardly that. Yes, we bed down together and worked beside one another, but each of us had our own lives and family to care for. I didn't doubt that she would make a few friends with the dancer girls in my show, for they latched onto one another like a pack of leeches. Knowing that the girl was going to hold us up from leaving, I strolled by her area and stood before her as she struggled with the tent.

"Pack it up faster, girl… You wouldn't want to get left behind. We will be leaving within the hour."

"How many days do you think I will have to work before I make enough to buy myself a caravan?"

I chuckled. "Days? Sometimes it could take months… Get a move on, girl."

"It's Christine… You don't have to call me girl."

I didn't listen to her… no, I simply walked away to prepare for our departure, regretting the moment I allowed her into my camp. She wasn't strong, and I knew that she wouldn't last the week, for the road was both a dangerous and rough one to stay on. I knew sooner or later I would find out that she died or fell behind in our journey to another city. It would be a relief for me, for I couldn't stand the sight of this Christine girl already… Normal people were the worst sort to deal with, and I prayed she wouldn't last long.


	4. Chapter 4

**Christine's POV**

I stood at the doorway of my tent flap and looked at the people walking about the camp. They were all different and strange in some way. There were dwarfs, giants, women with beards, and a man with so many tattoos that he had almost no visible skin. There was a man covered with bumps and lumps so large, they resembled eggs, _pierced _eggs, for he had so many rings dangling out of his face, that I could actually hear him jingle-jangle as he walked by. This was truly one of those freak shows father had forbidden me to go to as a child. He said they were horrible places, devil's playgrounds and I could see why; this place was just like something out of a haunted funhouse from the devil's carnival.

But the most curious thing, was that they were all staring at me and had the most disgusted looks on their faces. It was as if I was the oddity here and not them which I suppose was true. When everyone was deformed it was strange to see someone normal, like me with them. I caught the eye of a woman and she glared at me as though her eyes were daggers and I felt something invisible crawl up my spine. I felt an unreasonable urge to panic and closed the flap of my home, before pressing my back to the tent with my breath coming hard, as I suddenly realized how alone I was in this harsh camp.

The camp was cold, so very, very cold and the tent I was in did little to drive off the Swedish winds which might as well have been made of ice rather than air. The snow was falling gently outside the flap of my tent but it had been falling now for so long that its beauty was not the gentleness I had loved as a child. It was so thick now, that it was like a double-sided mirror, both beautiful and sinister all at once. I knew that beauty could hide the most evil things in the world and nowhere was this more prevalent than in the snow-covered ground. It was six inches deep outside and when I breathed my breath came out in puffs of white steam, the way it would from papa's pipe, only cold and flat rather than warm and circular.

I shivered in my tent and I wanted to curl up and die; a jail would have been more comfortable I am sure than these accommodations as my new employer put it. I sneezed hard knowing I was sick and with a leak in the roof dripping on my head all night I would only get worse... but perhaps my employer was banking on that, if I died I would not be his problem. But what the man did not know was years of living on the street had made me very resourceful and when an old towel caught my eye and a needle pocking out from the side of the tent, I knew exactly what to do. I quickly made a makeshift patch the way I did when my father needed his trousers sewn. I layered it over until it was thick and tight and the water stopped leaking.

The tent was still freezing and I rubbed my now bumpy arms, feeling like the toad my aunt had always called me. If one thought about it, warts and gooseflesh were not much different, except one was not infected and liable to ooze. For this at least I was thankful, I did not need to be oozing and pussy on top of everything else. I was already in an awful condition as it was. My teeth were chattering and my runny nose was clogging up something awful, my throat was all scratchy and my skin was stuck to my ribs like skin stretched tight over the belly of a drum. My belly sounded like one already with the way it was rumbling and the weather did not help me in the slightest.

But the cold would not be an excuse for untidiness where this man was concerned and my employer would be in here at any time to inspect the cleanliness of my new home. I knew I must sleep tonight if I intended to be of any use to him in the morning. I sat down on my cot and sighed, putting my face in my hands and feeling the weight of the world land squarely on my shoulders. But I was terribly frightened, not only because of what I had gotten myself into, they did not know about my own scarring which was just as bad as some of the deformations. I hid them under my dress and kept them secret from the world. They were long and claw like, as though the hands of this cruel world had torn them from my flesh and stained me forever…how I hated them.

But it was not the marks themselves that I hated; no it was the reason behind them all... it was the pain I had endured at the hands of the people who loved me. Or rather they were supposed to have done so and did not because of the fact that my papa was a loony. None of them knew the kind of man daddy had been when he was not getting a 'prophecy' from his so-called Angel. The times by the fire where he would play the violin and tell me about my mother. He would sit with me and tell me these wonderful things as we sucked on peppermints and if I was lucky we would fall asleep together on the floor of the little house. It was those memories that kept me from going under these past ten years.

The childhood I had been robbed of was the only good memory I had left to remind me that there was any good left in the world. If it was not for them, I would be in the gutter somewhere with my feet pushing daisies up from the earth and long dead from starvation, disease or something worse. It was those dreams and the memories of my father that kept me from giving up and now at last, I had some measure of safety in my life as minuscule as it appeared. Here, in this tent, covered in a decade's worth of grime and stinking to high-heavens, I was free to be where I wished and I was getting my dream of traveling to exotic places.

It was just like papa and I had promised each other to do someday when I was old enough, but he did not live to see my dreams come true. I have to live with that for the rest of my life... I would have to live his dreams for him. I stood there in my ratty,stolen, warn out dress and was ashamed of myself for the state of me. This was not what papa would have wanted, insane or otherwise, he would weep to see his only child a wanted woman running from the police and mucky like this. I looked no better than a common street urchin and my stench said more sewer bum than anything else. I really needed a bath and a good night's rest.

I walked over to the large wooden tub and rain-barrel, stripping out of my filthy street clothes and pouring the water in before climbing waist deep into the water. It was freezing but I did not care, it felt so good to get the years' worth of dirt off me, and I watched as the water went from clear to grey almost at once. I lay my head back down in the water and cleared my tangled hair from the bugs and twigs that were on my head. It already felt better as I washed myself and the itching which was always terrible was slowly stopping. For this, I was grateful, because I had often torn my skin off with scratching at the irritated parts of my body. For once I was glad for the coldness, for the open cuts and scrapes were going numb from the chill and it was a welcome relief from the sting.

I looked over my shoulder at the round looking glass and saw the white lines of rough skinned flesh, long and white as though some wild beast had ravaged my back and neck. I frowned but rose from my bath and saw that my employer had left me a robe of scarlet and velvet, probably belonging to the acrobat that he had mentioned. I did not know whether or not I was allowed to use it, but if the tent was mine than surely the things inside it were mine too. I put it on and sighed at the warmth it brought and the freshness of its unmolded scent. It felt good to get warm after so many years of being cold on the streets and I began to look at this in a better way.

I was warm, had a place to stay, and was safe from my aunt and the law for the time being. This put me in a better mood and I swept the floor with a smile on my face as I made sure my cold tent would sparkle for my employer in the morning. A while later I looked down at the threadbare sheet meant to serve as my blanket and knew I would not last the night with only that and this robe for shelter from this bitter cold. I went out shivering in the Antarctic night, where a barn was and found wool cuttings in the waste bin to be thrown out or carried to market to be sold. I felt bad about stealing from people who had done me no harm, but I was so cold, that I did what I had to do.

I took my needle out, stuffed my blanket full of the wool and set about sewing it in. As I sewed, I realized I was free. Now I could do what I had not been able to do in years,I could be alone to sing in private, where I would not be punished. So I did just that. I crossed myself and after setting the blanket down, I lit the candle on the night stand with a match. it was nighttime now and this candle was my only light. I lit the little flame as I began to waver in the cold wind and I began to pray.

_"Oh God-our heavenly Father.  
>Oh, God-and my father<br>Who is also in heaven.  
>May the light of this<br>Flickering candle  
>Illuminate the night the way<br>Your spirit illuminates my soul._

_Papa, can you hear me?  
>Papa, can you see me?<br>Papa can you find me in the night?  
>Papa are you near me?<br>Papa, can you hear me?  
>Papa, can you help me not be frightened?<br>Looking at the skies I seem to see  
>A million eyes which ones are yours?<em>

_Where are you now that yesterday  
>Has waved goodbye<br>And closed its doors?  
>The night is so much darker;<br>The wind is so much colder;  
>The world I see is so much bigger<br>Now that I'm alone.  
>Papa, please forgive me.<br>Try to understand me;_

_Papa, don't you know I had no choice?  
>Can you hear me praying,<br>Anything I'm saying  
>Even though the night is filled with voices?<br>I remember everything you taught me  
>Every book I've ever read...<br>Can all the words in all the books  
>Help me to face what lies ahead?<br>The trees are so much taller_

_And I feel so much smaller;  
>The moon is twice as lonely<br>And the stars are half as bright...  
>Papa, how I love you...<br>Papa, how I need you.  
>Papa, how I miss you<br>Kissing me good night..."_

With my prayers finished, I blew out the candle and turned to climb into my bed, when I was startled by the sight of my employer standing there, mouth agape. I did not know that the consequences would be severe.

* * *

><p><strong>Well, Erik heard her sing... Your reviews are greatly appreciated by Oldfashionedromantic and I. Thanks again..<strong>


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